ALBANY – Whether it was Mayor Bloomberg or Mayor Giuliani, Mayor Dinkins or Mayor Koch, all recent mayors have seen their best-laid budget plans fall victim – to a greater or lesser degree – to Albany’s fiscal machinations.

But this time, it’s dramatically worse, because Bloomberg – with a $3.6 billion budget gap and draconian cuts in the offing – faces the most horrendous budget crisis since Abe Beame in 1975.

Budget chaos has long been the standard in Albany – it’s the 19th straight year the governor and lawmakers failed to reach an agreement by the April 1 start of the fiscal year.

Yesterday’s blowup between Gov. Pataki and the legislative leaders has its own unique causes – but at its heart the budget breakdown is very much about the practice of raw political power.

It’s now a well-established truism in Albany that the political party outside the Governor’s Mansion believes that budget leverage can be gained through delay, delay, and more delay, until the governor comes around.

New York’s Legislature has been divided between a Republican-controlled Senate and a Democratic Assembly since 1975. It’s no surprise that the 19-year “streak” began a few years later.

Democratic Gov. Hugh Carey used to pull out his (dyed) hair as then-Senate Majority Leader Warren Anderson (R-Binghamton) held up the budget to obtain extra spending for his favorite programs.

The process continued through Mario Cuomo’s 12 years in office. When the governor’s office went Republican with Pataki in 1995, Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver quickly took over the role of spoiler.